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November 27, 2012

Savant's new reviews today are:

Ramrod
Blu-ray

It's an unusual western -- a tough and cynical tale of ambition and loyalty starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake, a pair of actors one expects in lighter fare. But director Andre De Toth's range war is a step up in ruthlessness and brutality. Very progressive for its year, and until now a 'stealth' western mini-classic appreciated only by genre fans. In Blu-ray from Olive Films.
11/27/12


Die Niebelungen
Blu-ray

The new Murnau Stiftung restoration presents Lang's enormous (4.7 hour) silent epic in a nearly complete version, even adding a previously unseen violent coda to the conclusion. The images are finally good enough to appreciate the 'magic' quality of Part One, and the vengeful, death-obsessed chaos of Part Two. Includes a lengthy, intricately detailed German making-of docu. In Blu-ray from Kino Classics.
11/27/12

and

The Face of Fu Manchu

Christopher Lee dons fake eyelids and a long moustache to play Sax Rohmer's insidious arch villain, this time perfecting a nerve gas with which to control the world. Tsai Chin is his torture-loving daughter and Nigel Green the Sherlock Holmes-like hero, Nayland Smith. The first and best of Harry Allan Towers' cut-price Fu Manchu thrillers, in Techniscope. From The Warner Archive Collection.
11/27/12




Hello!

Am trying to get set for the holidays here, which mostly means recovering from Thanksgiving. Take Uncle Savant's advice: if you need to buy gifts, get the heck out there now so you don't spend the next month worrying / feeling guilty.

Turner Classic Movies is still running an exciting schedule, so I'm reporting on December offerings that grabbed my attention. These are either titles I want to see, semi-rarities I can recommend, or things I've reviewed on disc that are getting an airing on the channel:

The Glass Key, La Promesse (12.02), Baby Peggy the Elephant in the Room, Assignment in Brittany (12.03), The Loves of Pharaoh, ...All the Marbles (12.07), Autumn Leaves (12.08), Baby Face Harrington (12.10), Teresa (12.11), Lemora - A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (12.14), Impact, The Deadly Companions (12.15), Rod Serlings' Carol for Another Christmas (12.16), Crime of Passion (12.20), The Lost Missile, The Satan Bug (12.21), The Cosmic Monsters, Ministry of Fear (12.30). It's a crying shame that The Satan Bug looks better on TCM than it does on MGM's MOD disc. And that's a heck of a Lost Missile poster ... don't expect visuals like that in the movie. It's the show in which delinquent hot rodders steal the hero's atomic bomb before he can use it to save the world.

It looks as if no screener is coming for the Alfred Hitchcock Blu-ray box, which is fair enough -- Universal was very generous with their Monsters box last month. I did borrow a friend's set to check out the transfers. The ones that seemed less than perfect were titles I'm personally not crazy about --Family Plot, etc. The killer titles looked fantastic --Vertigo, Rear Window, The Birds. I'll be very happy to wait for individual releases on these, even though I really don't know when I'd watch them all the way through again... they've all been thoroughly memorized for at least 30 years. Oh, The Man Who Knew Too Much '56 remake really benefits from the new transfer. Wide shots really pay off, as we can now appreciate what's going on in little details. The giant Albert Hall sequence now seems truly spectacular. It's good to know that Criterion's Blu-ray of the original 1934 version is coming out on January 15 -- can't wait to see Peter Lorre again.

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson



November 23, 2012

Savant's new reviews today are:

Suddenly
Blu-ray

Frank Sinatra as a psycho killer? Ol' Blue Eyes and his gang invade a modest family home and prepare to murder the President of the United States via high-powered rifle. Legend keeps trying to link this movie to the Kennedy assassination but the only connection is the country's push toward extremism. Stalwart Sterling Hayden and beautiful Nancy Gates fight over whether her son should be raised as a weakling, or to join the Fight for Freedom. It's a cautionary Cold War tale advocating a state of total war with the Commies. Finally in a decent-quality transfer --- but at the wrong aspect ratio! In Blu-ray from Image Entertainment.
11/24/12

Twilight's Last Gleaming
Blu-ray

In the nervous year 1981, rogue general Burt Lancaster and two convicted killers take over an ICBM silo and threaten to start WW3 unless President Charles Durning publicly admits that the Vietnam War was waged for fraudulent reasons. Robert Aldrich's technically adept suspense thriller is based on some foggy political thinking, unless you think that liberal peacenik activists are the ones to carry out terrorist death pacts. With Richard Widmark and Paul Winfield. Newly restored at its original length in Blu-ray from Olive Films.
11/24/12

and

Abraham Lincoln
Blu-ray

D.W. Griffith's penultimate feature is a reverential, superficial and unaccountably stiff biography of the great President, despite a fine performance by Walter Huston. Griffith occasionally captures Lincoln's folksy charm but seems overwhelmed by the talkie format. Kino's new version will appeal to collectors and historians, as it's based on a 2008 restoration that recovered some lost scenes (picture only), including a realistic depiction of the misery of a slave ship. With Una Merkel in a small but touching role as Lincoln's lost first love Ann Rutledge. In Blu-ray from Kino Classics.
11/24/12





Hello!

We had a safe and sane Thanksgiving here, despite a neighbor's odd choice of Turkey Day traditions, a loud Karaoke bash in his back yard after dinner. With all the nighttime noises in Los Angeles -- distant traffic, sirens, helicopters -- the racket was fairly easy to ignore.

I've finished a review of Criterion's new Heaven's Gate, which will show up first at TCM Online. It was a tough movie to review: I'm always eager to see it again, but it quickly wears me down. Michael Cimino's unwelcome revisions include an annoying bit of vandalism -- the intermission has been removed, ruining the film's most remarkable shot.

Joe Dante has circulated a link to a Jerry Beck Cartoon Brew article that contains links to nine Original Dave Fleischer Superman Cartoons, newly restored and posted to YouTube by Warner Bros. They look really clean and colorful!

Some good restoration news from Dennis Doros of Milestone Film & Video / Millarium Zero: Milestone has been working on restorations of films by Shirley Clarke. I remember her as a visiting professor at UCLA in the middle 1970s - you'd see Ms. Clarke prowling Melnitz Hall late at night looking for a comfortable place to take a break (fat chance). Dennis' investigations have uncovered film materials on Clarke titles thought lost:

"With the UCLA Film & Television Archive and their restorationist Ross Lipman, Milestone has paid for a new preservation internegative, a 2K digital master and new 35mm prints of her first feature, The Connection that toured the world this spring and summer. Then, we paid for the new preservation interpositive, sound restoration and new 35mm prints of Ornette: Made in America that we premiered in the summer and fall to great acclaim. Both films played for a week with our friends at the New Beverly.

Also this summer, we discovered in England an original 1961 internegative of The Connection that had not seen the light of day since its original release and the original 35mm print that Shirley premiered at Cannes before she made her final edits. They are both deposited now at the UCLA Film Archive to be inspected and preserved.

And in the past month, we finally confirmed that our two-year-long search for master materials for Portrait of Jason was not in vain -- the "outtake" reels in her collection are actually an original fine-grain version off the camera negative! Along with Modern Videofilm and Joe Lindner at the Academy Film Archive, we are presently restoring the film with a 2K digital master and a 35mm internegative. This amazing documentary is set to premiere in Berlin this February!

-- Savant likes nothing better than hearing good news about film restoration -- !

Well, the reviews this week interested me, even the 1930 Griffith bio of Abraham Lincoln. I wonder how Spielberg's version is doing? Wish you were here ... an exciting vacation day awaits of moving heavy boxes and disposing of hundreds of pounds of old paperwork -- ! Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson



November 20, 2012

Savant's new reviews today are:

Hope Springs
Blu-ray

Meryl Streep drags Tommy Lee Jones to a marriage counseling session that might just save what's become a horribly stifled relationship. Promoted as a romantic comedy, the show's serious aspects are well worth considering -- some of what happens may be painfully familiar to married folk. A tough subject for fair treatment made worthwhile by a thoughtful script and committed performances. In Blu-ray from Sony/Columbia Pictures.
11/20/12


Simon

Always referenced as a former Woody Allen collaborator, writer-director Marshall Brickman has his own way of looking at comedy and his own ideas about inspiring actors to quirky heights. Alan Arkin, Austin Pendleton, Madeline Kahn, William Finley, Fred Gwynne and Adolph Green run amuck in Brickman's satiric story of a pompous psych professor chosen by the prankster delinquents of a research-think tank to be conditioned into thinking he's an alien from another world. From The Warner Archive Collection.
11/20/12

and

The Trap
Blu-ray

Richard Widmark, Lee J. Cobb, Tina Louise and Earl Holliman simmer in the desert heat in this thriller about a mob boss trying to flee the country from a remote airfield. The highlight is a chase across the desert, with Widmark's car in constant fear of ambush by ruthless mobsters. It's Key Largo meets Bad Day at Black Rock. In Blu-ray from Olive Films.
11/20/12




Hello!

I've been writing readers about the demise of the Savant Wish List, and friend and associate Bruce Holecheck wrote in to tell me about the Cinema Arcana upcoming releases list he maintains, as a supplement to the Mondo Digital page. It skews toward genre and fantastic films but is pretty accurate, as another info resource. Thanks Bruce ---

Gary Teetzel informs me that the following Blu-rays licensed from MGM, will soon be coming from Scream Factory: John Carpenter's The Fog, The Burning, Joe Dante's The Howling (pictured above), Tobe Hooper's LIFEFORCE, Night of the Comet (all reportedly for the first time on Blu-ray) and a new special edition of George Romero's Day of the Dead.

And, almost as a reminder to myself, here's a roundup of what I'll be reviewing next: In DVD, Confessions of an Opium Eater, The Face of Fu Manchu, Violence and Eclipse 37: When Horror Came to Shochiku. The Blu-ray list is a bit fatter: Uptight, Twilight's Last Gleaming, The Nibelungen, Heaven's Gate, Abraham Lincoln, Weekend, Ramrod, Sometimes a Great Notion and Suddenly. Hoped for but not yet in hand are BD's of Deathtrap, Gypsy, Baron Blood, Wild Geese, Ashanti, Godzilla vs. Biollante, Ken Burns: The Dust Bowl, Von Ryan's Express and Lost Horizon ('73).

Finally, the ever-dependable Trailers from Hell page has three "Teenage" horrors on tap this week. Coming up are coming attractions for Teenage Monster and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein; and viewable now is the unheralded masterpiece Teenagers from Outer Space, with commentary by Joe Dante. I must confess report that at age seven I was there in a theater on the edge of my seat watching this epic, and was very moved by the experience. But I also knew that the shadow of a lobster was not a Gargon monster from outer space.

Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson



November 17, 2012

Savant's new reviews today are:

Rashomon
Blu-ray

Akira Kurosawa's most acclaimed film? A major East to West breakthrough title and the subject of many a filmic treatise. A crime is committed on the road, and testimony is given by a wife, her husband and the bandit who may or may not have attacked her. Subjective flashbacks leave us pondering the nature of truth -- is it really knowable? A profound classic that always provokes audience discussion. Starring Toshiro Mifune. In Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
11/17/12


The Secret Six

Clark Gable and Jean Harlow share the screen for the first time and earn their initial MGM contracts in this George Hill/Frances Marion gangster saga. Wallace Beery is a goonish bootlegger named Scorpio, who weathers murder attempts and treacherous companions (like wild man Ralph Bellamy, honest) as he takes Chicago as his personal fiefdom. But betrayal awaits down the road. See Gable & Harlow shine in supporting roles. From The Warner Archive Collection.
11/17/12


The Rains of Ranchipur
Blu-ray

This CinemaScope & Color remake of the '30s hit The Rains Came pairs spoiled American Lana Turner and innocent Indian doctor Richard Burton against the backdrop of an exotic land in monsoon time. Fred MacMurray takes up with youngster Joan Caulfield, while Michael Rennie watches his wife run astray. Features a spectacular special effects sequence when that pesky dam breaks and washes away most of the scenery. With an Isolated Score Track for Hugo Friedhofer's music. In Blu-ray from Twilight Time.
11/17/12

and

The Postman Always Rings Twice
Blu-ray

Lana Turner (again) and John Garfield heat up this James M. Cain story about adultery and murder at a So-Cal roadside diner. MGM's glossy production is a distraction but the portrait of cynical legal maneuvering and moral decay is still potent. With long-form documentaries on the two stars, hosted by their respective daughters. Also starring Leon Ames and the excellent Hume Cronyn as a wickedly amoral defense attorney. Noir gold, in Blu-ray from Warner Home Video.
11/17/12




Hello!

It's a pleasant Saturday with a light rain falling. They say they're repairing the Hollywood Sign, but every time I think to look it seems intact as usual.

They're circulating and maybe you've seen them, but associate Darren Gross sent this Dangerous Minds link to some Color Home Movies of Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster, the footage where he mugs with Jack Pierce and sticks his tongue out at the camera. Enjoy!

I was as pleased as anyone to see that Criterion is releasing a Blu-ray of On The Waterfront on February 19... but also a bit dismayed that they're caving in to web hub-bub by also offering a flat unmatted version. It will by necessity really be a TV-safe flat version, to crop out microphones that pop in here and there, especially in a scene in a church. Let's just call the 1:85 widescreen copy a "theatrical" version, and the other one for viewers that miss their 15" portable B&W televisions.

Speaking of not missing your water 'til your well's run dry, I wish I had a Hostess Twinkie right now ... and I haven't eaten on in at least fifteen years, maybe more...

Finally, the BIG NEWS from the Warner Archive Collection is that the innovative MOD line of collector product is expanding into Blu-ray. Next Tuesday will see the availability of two WAC-BD titles, Gypsy and Deathtrap. Not far behind will come The Hudsucker Proxy and Fearless. I remember seeing this as the logical next step for the WAC at least a year ago; Archive initiator George Feltenstein probably had the move planned from the very beginning. This will be a great outlet for HD masters of Warners-controlled titles that otherwise wouldn't see the light of day; I'm hoping its as big a success as the collector-oriented DVD WAC series.

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson



November 13, 2012

Savant's new reviews today are:

The Big Gundown
Region B/2 Blu-ray + DVD

(Actual disc title Der Gehetze der Sierra Madre; aka La Resa dei Conti). Lee Van Cleef takes top gun position as a famous lawman tracking down Cuchillo (Tomas Milian), a Mexican peasant-bandit accused by a railroad baron of the rape and murder of a child. An exciting, humorous Spaghetti Western classic from Sergio Sollima, with one of the very best Morricone film scores in the genre. This is the uncut 110-minute version unseen in the United States, a German release containing a Region B Blu-ray and a Region 2 DVD, with a third disc of extras. From Explosive Media GmbH.
11/13/12

Mary Pickford
Rags & Riches Collection

Blu-ray

Milestone gives us three engaging, funny and astonshingly well-made Pickford classics, in which she plays her beloved juvenile characters. Maurice Tourneur directs Poor Little Rich Girl, The Hoodlum sees a spoiled Mary turning into a street tough on the Lower East Side, and the exceptionally well-made Sparrows makes Mary the savior of a ten children forced to escape from captivity through a deadly swamp. With some interesting and informative extras, such as Pickford's 1910 starring role in D.W. Griffith's Ramona. Nicely restored in Blu-ray from Milestone/Oscilloscope.
11/13/12

and

Guys and Dolls
Blu-ray

The chaos Hollywood creates through its star system! Joseph L. Mankiewicz adapts (distorts!) the famous Broadway play to shoehorn in Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, whose personalities and talents simply don't fit their roles. Strangely enough, star power makes the CinemaScope movie work on a level or two, while cheated stars Sam Levene and Vivian Blaine shine and Jean Simmons walks away with the movie. The disconnected scenes -- including Marlon Brando's singing -- somehow add up to a charming experience. In Blu-ray from Warner Home Video.
11/13/12




Hello!

DVD Savant reviews proceed apace, something that I've kept going for thirteen years now with only a couple of interruptions!

Gary Teetzel sends this very Savant-oriented link to a promo ad for a new (?) Italian TV serial (?) for a favorite character -- Diabolik. The promo looks very stylish, so much so that I'd like to see more. It looks as if the original comic is being adhered to, with Diabolik changing identities like his notorious predecessor Fantomas. But where's Eva Kant? Where's Ginko?

My note about upcoming Blu-ray discs hit home last Wednesday, with some enthusiastic fans of Zulu Dawn expressing thanks for being informed of the release date. Believe me, I don't spend all of my extra moments scraping across websites looking for new release info, so these announcements are exciting news for me too.

Friendly readers have contributed some very helpful error and mis-judgment corrections to Savant reviews this week, but they're so humiliating that I've decided to not say what they were. If this message plants the notion that 'Savant fixes his egregious errors', all will not have been in vain.

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson



November 10, 2012

Savant's new reviews today are:

Olive Films
Film Noir Collection Volume One

Blu-ray

A quartet gift set of Paramount noirs in HD, starring Alan Ladd, William Holden, Burt Lancaster and Charlton Heston (in his first film role). It's a good selection of crime, angst and psychological punishment, leavened by sadistic details and co-stars Nancy Olson, Corrine Calvet, Lizabeth Scott, Jan Sterling and Phyllis Calvert. The titles are Appointment with Danger, Union Station, Rope of Sand and Dark City. In Blu-ray from Olive Films.
11/10/12


Northwest Passage

Guerilla fighter Spencer Tracy leads Robert Young, Walter Brennan and 160 Rodgers' Rangers on a trek through upstate New York forests in 1759, to wipe out a fortress of hostile Indians. Director King Vidor's French & Indian War epic is unsparing and violent, with verbal descriptions of tortures that still sound too grisly for daytime television. Filmed in early Technicolor deep in the wild, and quite a unique item. And who's the crazy guy with a severed head hidden in his rucksack? From The Warner Archive Collection.
11/10/12

and

You Only Live Twice
Blu-ray

Sean Connery's fifth 007 outing is no winner in the suspense and drama departments but a dazzling spectacle when it comes to giant sets, huge ninja vs. SPECTRE battles and crazy Sci-Fi action in orbit. James Bond visits Japan to track down the source of a rogue killer spaceship, and finds -- Donald Pleasance as E.S. Blofeld. With Takakura Ken, Mie Hama, Akiko Wakabayashi and Karin Dor, Miss Sharkbait of 1967. In Blu-ray from MGM/Fox.
11/10/12




Hello!

More fun reviews this weekend, as cooler temperatures settle in on Southern California. I found out from several readers on the East Coast that they'd lost power for several days, which considering other problems with the storms must have been a rude state of affairs, to put it mildly. I hope everyone is high and dry, and warm.

The printable disc news is rather thin this week. I found out that Bonjour Tristesse has a lot of fans, judging by the mail that thought my review to be too harsh. That's got to be a good thing for Twilight Time, as I was under the illusion that the movie was pretty obscure. I also heard from several readers saying that they'd never seen Rosemary's Baby before and were blown away by it. Personally, I think I saw it when I was too young and got some odd ideas of what a pregnancy is like.

To match the new Spielberg film, Kino Classics is releasing a Blu-ray of D.W. Griffith's 1930 Abraham Lincoln, starring Walter Huston (November 13). Kino also promises a Blu-ray of the weird Bela Lugosi classic White Zombie, reportedly from a new and improved source element (January 29). I'm also still hoping to review Image's new disc of the paranoid assassination movie Suddenly, with Frank Sinatra (December 4). I must also say that I eagerly await Twilight Time's new BD disc of the 1973 musical remake of Lost Horizon, a miscalculation too crazy-maladroit not to enjoy. I was an usher at its Westwood premiere and have a few star-studded anecdotes to tell (December 11). They also say that Olive Films will be issuing a BD of John Ford's The Quiet Man on January 22 ... I hope it overcomes its previous Technicolor alignment issues. Finally, Severin will be back with a Blu-ray I've been whining for, for years -- the terrific epic Zulu Dawn. That's on January 8, and I'm hoping for an early screener ---

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson



November 07, 2012

Savant's new reviews today are:

Lawrence of Arabia
2 Disc Director's Restored Edition
3-Disc Fiftieth Anniversary Limited Collector's Edition
Blu-ray

The restorers really had their work cut out for them this time around -- a movie that everybody wants on Blu-ray now, yet expects to be the best-looking disc ever. The cerebral epic about a great warrior whose personal life is mass of contradictions now arrives in spectacular condition, in a straight disc presentation and a handsome boxed gift set. Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins, Liz Taylor and Joan Collins shine in this all-time favorite; Savant reminisces about Road Show memories. Just kidding about Taylor and Collins. In Blu-ray from Columbia/Sony.
11/07/12

and

Bonjour Tristesse
Blu-ray

Another Columbia picture, one that sunk like a rock in 1958 but is now considered a critical masterpiece. Otto Preminger and Arthur Laurents adapt François Sagan's spicy story of decadence on the French Riviera, with Jean Seberg, Deborah Kerr and David Niven. Really great color in Blu-ray from Twilight Time.
11/07/12





Hello!


I was nervous yesterday and decided to hold up on posting DVD Savant for a day. I didn't get a full roster of reviews out, but the Lawrence of Arabia review took a lot of thought and effort!


A couple of fun links -- European correspondent Guido Bibra has written up an essay on a new Region 2 release of the Jacques Tati film Jour de fête, untangling that picture's odd history of release -- in color, in a 'colorized' version and in a final version (made of completely different takes) using a color process that "didn't work out" way back in the the late 1940s. The essay is HERE. Another version is in German as well.


I've also been pointed to a YouTube original Twilight Zone BTS featurette, that shows many of the technical personnel as well as the directors working on the 1983 picture, including Savant friend and advisor, makeup creator Craig Reardon.

Thank you! Glenn Erickson


November 03, 2012

Savant's new reviews today are:

Even the Rain

A film crew goes to Bolivia in 2000 to find cheap Indian extras for their movie about Christopher Columbus's exploitation of American natives 500 years before. Meanwhile, their lead actor is involved in a protest over the privatization of water -- the locals must buy from a multinational corporation at high rates, and even collecting rainwater is outlawed. (This part, and the riots that followed, is true.) Tambié la lluvia may be the most entertaining movie ever made about the global economy takeover -- with a strong dramatic backbone and excellent performances from Gael García Bernal and Luis Tosar; directed by Icíar Bollaín. A highly recommended film about political realities underreported here in America. From Image Entertainment.
11/03/12

Rosemary's Baby
Blu-ray

Roman Polanski's first Hollywood film is a knockout on all counts, a graphically restrained but genuinely scary excursion into modern day Satanism in New York. The fascinating, unnerving performances mesh the disparate talents of Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer. Polanski wipes out standard Hollywood technique and keeps his audience spellbound. With a great music score by Krzysztof Komeda and an excellent new long-form documentary. In Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
11/03/12

Red Dust

It's sex sex sex in the s-s-steamy tropics, with Jean Harlow, Clark Gable and Mary Astor generating more natural chemistry than audiences would see for years to come. A rubber planter shacks up with a local prostitute but also finds time to seduce the prim wife of one of his employees. This is what Pre-code license is all about, an intelligent love triangle under intensely provocative circumstances. Everybody keeps their clothes mostly on, if one doesn't count the peekaboo rain barrel scene. From The Warner Archive Collection.
11/03/12

and

Sunset Blvd.
Blu-ray

Billy Wilder's 1950 triumph marks the high point of the first section of his directing career, with a noir-inflected horror tale about an 'undead' diva from silent pictures draining the life from a cynical, self-destructive young writer. A landmark in every respect, with sensational performances from William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim and Nancy Olson. In a new Blu-ray restoration from Paramount.
11/03/12




Hello!

Get ready to get an extra hour of sleep tonight when you turn your clocks back. Some announcements:

Do you happen to be a Spaghetti western fan living in the U.K., somewhere near Leeds? Savant's reviewing associate Lee Broughton is conducting a special screening night, which I report verbatim:

"In conjunction with the 26th Leeds International Film Festival, Lee Broughton has programmed - and will introduce - a double bill of Django-related Spaghetti Westerns. Django (Sergio Corbucci, 1966) and Django Kill! (Giulio Questi, 1967) will screen at The Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds on Tuesday 6th November from 14:15."

The next item involves Internet links, so it matters not which side of The Pond you are on. Savant correspondent and advisor Dick Dinman has three new radio shows about the new Universal Classic Monsters Collection: In the First Show Interviewee Julie Adams joins Dick to discuss the set and her participation in the 3D Creature from the Black Lagoon. In shows Two and Three Dick's guest is Sara Karloff, who discusses her father Boris Karloff's film roles and personal life.

Coming up almost immediately will be my review of Sony's new Lawrence of Arabia Blu-ray. A busy writing associate Jeremy Arnold is the author of a lavish book included with the pricey deluxe gift box release, and I'm eager to praise his good work in print. The disc quality is also everything that other reviewers have claimed -- excellent.

And I promise I'll get to a new review of the Bond epic You Only Live Twice, now available as a separate purchase from that giant 007 box. I was going to skip it, but what can I say -- I got some request emails. And it will be fun to write up again --

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson


Don't forget to write Savant at [email protected].

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